Fluent Freshman - Part 18
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Weirdly enough the only thing that FF can think of as they head down the stairs is the first Saw movie.
That one happened IN a bathroom right? He kind of watched all of them in a row to prepare himself for whatever Andrew might decide to do to him. But he’s near positive that one happened in a bathroom. It was derelict and he didn’t think it really had running water (or did it? Didn’t the guy wake up in a half-full tub? His memory is hazy in his bathroom related desperation and may be trying to protect him from thinking about water).
All leading to the main thought going through his head as he slowly headed down the narrow stairway to his death.
Would Andrew let him use the facilities before he’s handcuffed to a pipe?
The worst part about all of this is that he is not sure if he needs to take a dump or if he just needs to fart, he knows he has to take a piss. He’s read that when you die your body will relax and it’ll all just flow out of you and Nicky gave him these pants so he feels bad but he also does not want to face his death without pants. If he needs to take a shit then they’re definitely going to be absolutely ruined, if it’s a fart well…Andrew can’t kill him any further? He can mutilate his corpse a little but FF won’t be around to experience it.
No matter what he’s definitely going to piss himself. He had way too much water at Sweeties trying to consume the spicy ice cream.
You may be wondering why FF has not run away from his predicament and is walking down these steps without protest or comment or plea for his life.
First of all he is pretty sure that if he makes any sudden movements he will ruin these pants that Nicky bought for him. Second of all Andrew had already told him once that he wouldn’t accept any pleading for mercy he still remembers how he asked Andrew, “Please give me back my pen?” and Andrew had shot him a look that had his stomach cramp and his fingers itch for the bottle sweet pink relief in his backpack.
“I don’t like that word, don’t use it around me.” He said.
FF ever the pragmatic sort, “Which one?” He had asked because he had said a few, “I don’t want there to be a misunderstanding.” He followed up with when Andrew glowered at him only for the glare’s intensity to increase 10 fold.
“Don’t use the first word of your first statement or the last word of your second.” Andrew grit out and got up to leave without a word.
Message received loud and clear Andrew did NOT like words ‘Please’ or ‘Misunderstanding’.
So FF knows that any pleading for mercy would ABSOLUTELY result in Andrew not letting him take a bathroom break before him and Captain Neil make destroying him into a couple activity. The fact that Captain Neil is here is a bit of a shock but maybe Captain Neil has finally gotten the other Freshman Dealer up to snuff.
Maybe Kevin really did want to dissect him to figure out how Strikers keep passing straight to him?
They reach the door at the bottom of the stairs.
Ah, time to face the music.
At least he’d texted Gran that he was going to die when they had gotten into the club and the bathroom had not made itself readily apparent. Sure it was about his current ‘gotta piss / gotta shit’ situation but he’d been wise to keep his cause of death vague in that text.
The door opens and…
This is the NICEST torture chamber FF has EVER seen. (And after his desperation watch of all the Saw movies he has seen quite a FEW)
“Minyard, Josten, and Guest. Table 6 is yours.” A voice comes from the side and when he looks over there’s a man in quite a nice uniform standing behind a soft-lit bar polishing a glass looking every bit like a bar tender at those high-end places you see in movies. He looks around a bit more and there are some other people down here. It’s not quiet per se but it is a comfortable level of noise in comparison to the IQ dropping noise upstairs.
“C’mon Smith.” Andrew juts his chin towards a table in the back.
FF follows but continues to try and fit this nice little room into his world view.
Do these people watch other people get tortured to death for fun on a Friday night? Unlikely considering the upholstery on the booths and chairs looked like it’d stain if blood got on it. Was this perhaps a trafficking location where Andrew would sell off his organs to the highest bidder? He looked at the other patrons who seemed a bit higher class than the general club scene upstairs but not like they had the money to buy one of his kidneys. Maybe-
“Do not tell Nicky about this place, ever.” Andrew says as they slide into the booth. FF nods but can’t help but tilt his head slightly in an unspoken question, “He would absolutely tell any and everyone about it. Eden’s wants to keep this place a secret from the general public.” Andrew explains.
“Nicky currently thinks that there’s a straight swingers club down here.” Captain Neil says with a huff of laughter.
“Eden’s is cool, even though there’s some sick shit in the basement.” Floats through his head again.
What the fuck was a swinger?
His fingers itch for his phone but he’s currently talking with Andrew and Captain Neil so that’d be rude but they’re talking to him like he absolutely knows what a swinger is and he DOES NOT.
“It’s quieter down here. Figured you’d prefer it.” Andrew says as he gets up and heads towards the bar down here where the bartender was aggressively cutting ice chunks.
He and Captain Neil sit in silence for a few seconds before Captain Neil offers him a slight smile, “I know you’d rather be with your grandma and you and Andrew prefer not to say things out loud but we’ve really liked hanging out with you.” Captain Neil says.
????????????????????????????????????????????????
That’s such a nice thing to say to someone.
Especially someone like FF.
Especially especially when they’re planning on killing him?
He hopes his confusion stays off his face as he nods once. “It’s been fun.” It’s not even really a lie. Thanksgiving yesterday had been nice and loud and FF had missed the chaos of a Family Dinner more than he had ever realized. The car ride had been…a time but once he’d asked Andrew to either keep his eyes on the road or let him out Andrew’s hands had stayed at 10 and 2 and the ride had been smooth. Aaron and Nicky’s weight against him had been nice too, a warm memory before he developed a possible life long aversion to whipped cream. He’d gotten to go Black Friday shopping and Captain Neil even helped carry it home for him. Baking bad been nice even if the stress of doing it with his life on the line was less so. The subsequent nap and day spent doing normal college guy things had been…it’d all been nice.
It’s starting to feel like….
“Drink this.” Andrew puts a drink down in front of him.
No Andrew definitely wants his bladder to burst.
“What is it?” He asks instead looking at the creamy looking drink with suspicion.
Andrew rolls his eyes as he hands Neil a fruity looking drink as he sits with what is a few fingers of scotch. “It’s virgin.” Andrew says not answering the question at all and must pick up that FF won’t be drinking it until he gets the full answer because he continues after a moment, “It’s like a Pina Colada but with bananas instead.” Andrew answers.
It’s not that FF hates banana but why in the world would Andrew grab him this? Was it just one of the few virgins options on this place’s fancy menu or-
“Bananas will help get your stomach acid back down.” Andrew says, “Since you’re an idiot and ate that mango ice cream just because you wanted to impress that girl.” He rolls his eyes.
“Impress that girl?” There weren’t any girls at the table and how in the world would him eating that god-forsaken spicy ice cream impress anyone other than Betsy. Even Betsy would only be impressed by the depths he was willing to reach just to avoid what he perceives as an awkward social situation.
“The waitress.” Neil reminds him as if that cleared anything up.
“Yeah,” he says as if he has understood the conversation but he has not. “It was spicy mango.” He says because maybe if he keeps the conversation going he’ll get enough context clues to understand what might be his last conversation.
Andrew let out a huff of laughter and pushed FF’s drink closer to him, “Drink your fancy Banana smoothie Casanova.” He says.
No closer to understanding the conversation he accepts that it might be something that only becomes clear after he sheds his mortal coil and is no longer given a -10 INT debuff by his full bladder and revolting stomach.
He takes a sip.
Oh that’s actually pretty good.
It feels like he can feel it sizzling in his stomach and soothing the discomfort there. Maybe he should look into Banana smoothies as a replacement for what Abby has called a ‘concerning co-dependence’ in regards to Pepto Bismol. No one can put him on a medical watch if it’s just banana smoothies he’s chugging down like they’re going out of style.
“Thanks,” he says, “that was good.” He admits before reaching into his jacket and moving past the Megamind toy and grabbing his wallet. “What do I owe you for that?” He asks.
“We’re even.” Andrew waves away the money.
“You bought the stuff for breakfast, those brownies, and the pie tomorrow.” Neil says and FF blinks surprised to hear that they were talking about the pie he didn’t think he was going to get the chance to make.
“You don’t need to buy a spot with us.” Andrew says and FF leans back slightly at the intensity on Andrew’s face as he says it. “I invited you here because I wanted to. The brownies were good but if you don’t feel like making the pie tomorrow? It’s not like I’m going to drive you back to Palmetto and leave you on Abby’s doorstep.” He says.
FF feels gears start to turn in his head.
“It’s good pie.” He hears himself say.
“I didn’t even know about the pie when I invited you.” Andrew says and…
Andrew and FF sit in silence but honestly it’s not like Andrew’s sharpening his knives. The two of them mostly just do their own work or read. FF has been getting his German literacy up to snuff so that he can read the language when he goes there to visit Nicky’s fiance next year. He likes how serious Andrew is about learning it so that he doesn’t have to ask Captain Neil a thousand questions and it’d be nice if Andrew wasn’t obviously planning on murdering him.
Andrew brings dried apples and sends Captain Neil along with probiotic yogurts to their meetings. Both of those things tend to soothe his stomach and the yogurt that had been unflavored before was now vanilla which he liked a fair bit. It would have been a really nice gesture if it wasn’t for the fact that Andrew was making fun of his tummy troubles.
Andrew will put his foot down in practice sometimes when Kevin is getting too demanding wanting to know exactly how FF intercepted his passes to Neil. Kevin always backs off and Andrew will do the same when Jack starts to get a little too personal in his attacks at FF or when Sheena decides she’s going to be a bitch. It’d be nice if it wasn’t Andrew staking his claim that he was the one who was going to make FF’s life miserable.
Andrew drove FF around for an hour after Greg had shown up. He found out later from one of his friends that Andrew had threatened Greg after he had power walked away into the building. Andrew had driven him around and had only started heading towards the tower when FF had relaxed. It would have been nice if Andrew wasn’t trying to lure him into a false sense of security.
Andrew had invited him to his Family’s house over Thanksgiving when the bad storm had ruined his Thanksgiving plans. Andrew had threatened Jack to stop him from eating his Grandma’s pie and complaining about it. Andrew had stopped messing around with Captain Neil when FF had made it clear he was uncomfortable being in a car where the driver wasn’t paying attention to the road. Andrew had twice made him go to bed in the last couple hours.
It’d be nice if…
“We’ve really liked hanging out with you” Captain Neil had said.
Andrew was just trying to be nice.
Embarrassment rolls over him like a wave but FF has many years of pretending like he’s not going to die from embarrassment, “Thanks for inviting me. I’ll still probably make the pie tomorrow.” He offers.
Andrew’s eyes change slightly and FF is under the impression that he’s happy to hear that.
“Just enjoy your drink Smith.” Andrew says.
FF does go back to sipping his drink and letting more and more memories of things Andrew had done come to him and lets his embarrassment grow.
He finishes his drink and only then realizes that he is a code red in terms of bladder capacity. The new knowledge that this is not a torture chamber but in fact yet another overture of friendship from Andrew paired with his desperation finally loosens the question from his mouth, “Where’s the bathroom here?” He asks.
“There isn’t one downstairs but just head up stairs and hug the wall to the left.” Captain Neil answers.
“Bring your phone. If Frank doesn’t recognize you to let you back in.” Andrew reminds him.
FF nods and heads out of the club and up the stairs.
He might be doing a bit of a potty dance so he forces himself to become unnoticeable because he does not need cool people at a cool club to see him about to piss himself. Once he enters into a stealth mode that the United States Military would like to talk to him about he hugs the wall and nearly cries tears of relief when he sees a door labelled MEN.
He doesn’t think about the possibility of letting up on stealth mode because he is sure that he is about to make a face that he does NOT want any human being to see when he unzips his pants and starts to take the world’s most life-affirming piss on the planet.
As his bladder empties his brain is able to process the understanding that he had come to down in the basement he had thought would be his final resting place.
Andrew has been trying to be nice (and succeeding it was all so nice! He feels like an asshole! He is an asshole! Gran always told him that assuming makes an Ass out of U and Me. He had just thought it was funny grandma humor not valuable life advice!)
The night wasn’t going to end with Andrew’s knife in his stomach, it was probably just going to end with Nicky puking on his shoes (which is fine because these are the shoes Nicky was letting him borrow for the club anyways, they’re his shoes to puke onto.)
A secondary relief fills his system. His stomach, soothed by the Banana smoothie and now this, feels like it might actually let him live through the night.
While FF was distracted with a piss that would have made any number of cult leaders jealous with the number of divine revelations he was experiencing he failed to notice a second man enter the bathroom.
There was a reason that FF always ALWAYS became noticeable when he was at a urinal and the man who came to the urinal right next to him was showcasing that VERY reason.
He was trapped here for at least ten more seconds and he could hear the man grumbling distractedly but didn’t really pay it too much attention until…
“Fucking Wesninski Brat.” He grumbled under his breath.
Oh god dammit.
NEXT
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Ride 751: Hakogaku's preliminary inspection
Pag 1
1: Plunging into a new chapter!!
Pag 2
1: The rivals standing in their way in the Inter High!!
Pag 3
1: Kanagawa Prefecture, Hakone city
3: Huh, a preliminary inspection
4: for the Inter High!?
5: Yeah... well... it's a usual thing
Now, really? Really?
Pag 4
1: Gwaaa hoii!!
2: I'll go, I'll go, I'll go!!
Yeeah!!
4: Huh, preliminary inspection? I might be a little interested
He's suddenly acting cool!?
5: Ah
Pag 5
1: Coough
Waaaa
He's suddenly vomiting blood!?
2: He definitely bit his tongue while jumping around in excitement earlier....
3: 'm ohey
It's obvious that your tongue hurts....
Yeah...
This guy is always injured....
4: If nohing!!
I get it, I get it!!
5: 'en u we 'eave? (When do we leave?)
In thirty minutes, before the clubroom... you'll take a car to the train station
'aight!!
6: It's so obvious he's happy about it
7: Was that right? They didn't give us details
I guess, it's what Manami-san told us
First year Tobirama
Pag 6
1: Last month, in the club's tournament he won the F-group climber race
Pag 7
1: Yeah, I see, and he's gonna run in this year's Inter High as the sixth regular member of Hakogaku!!
2: Seriously, I
3: I want to be considered cool by everyone!!
4: What's up with him, he looks so cheerful
Cool, cool, Kyuushu~
That Tobirama is so festive
Pag 8
5: Huh!? It's just me and Manami-san!?
Isn't- like, Doubashi-san coming!?
6: Hn.... I told Jou-kun and Yuuto, too, but they had their practice menu, so they said “no”
8: They said no!?
Huh!? But it's a preliminary inspection!?
9: For the Inter High!! A preliminary inspection, right!?
Yeah
Pag 9
1: A preliminary inspection for summer's great battle, right!?
2: That's right... the place we're going to now it's the biggest “mountain”.....
3: A mountain we absolutely have to overcome
4: And yet the other members didn't come!!
Ah... Manami... I'm seeing now that apparently the train stopped because of an accident
Ah
Should we just go there directly?
Is that okay? Thank you
5: Directly!? By car!?
Huh!?
6: To Kyuushu!?
7: The Inter High is in Kyuushu, right? How long will it take from here....
Hm? Around
Pag 10
1: Two hours and a half
Pag 11
4: Yeah... we arrived in two and a half hours, but- this is Chiba, isn't it!?
5: Where is Kyuushu!? Ah!? Is there a theme park like the park in Kyuushu here too?
And what abaout the splendid nature!? The big volcano...!!
6: Ah
7: Where will he have the preliminary inspection?
Cool
If you hurry up and get ready...?
Pag 12
1: We'll do our practice menu here, today
Pag 13
2: Our menu.... did you want to practice here just for a change of mood?
3: It's here, right? Where they do tournaments and stuff
It's Chiba's
4: Minegayama, right?
Yeah!!
5: Hakone is better though
6: I wanted to go to Kyuushu
7: Ah, by the way, speaking of Chiba, an acquaintance of mine lives here
Pag 14
1: You know, I was in the basketball club when I was in middle school
Ehh... I didn't know...
2: A good senpai of mine meddled with their basket club....
3: And apparently he was a good friend with my club's teacher advisor, and so they often organized practice matches with Chiba's middle school
4: I got injured a lot back then, too
So I often got injured and that guy from that middle school took care of me
5: He was so good at treating injuries that in my school they called him the “super manager”
6: I guess he's still in the basket club?
Pag 15
2: Ah, by the way, what's today's practice menu?
Fifteen minutes at a fixed output... three or something?
Nahh
3: Since they'll probably come, it's “do your best to win against that guy”!!
3: Huh!?
Who's gonna come!? You organized this with someone?
4: Any time now... probably
But we didn't
5: Organize it
6: Huh!?
The sound of wheels.... from behind us!? A bike!? …. no, more than one
Pag 16
2: They're here
Pag 17
1: Last year's champion, Sohoku High School!!
Pag 18
5: Teh!?
7: Yo
Pag 19
1: It's been a while, Sakamichi-kun
2: Hakogaku's captain, Manami Sangaku- why is he here!!
Pag 20
1: Wearing their jerseys and riding their bikes, there's no way they came here to sightsee!!
2: Manami-kun!!
3: The Inter High is next week already, isn't it? Bu before that.... I thought we should cross that “mountain*” once
(*NdT.: here, the kanji say “mountain king”, but the reading says “mountain”)
Pag 21
1: “Mountain”.....!! “That we absolutely have to overcome”- so this is the “preliminary inspection”!!
2: How about... that summit over there?
Your team... we're at an overwhelmind disadvantage, but
3: We don't plan on losing
It's a “preliminary battle”!?
5: Manami-san's concentration.....
Pag 22
1: it sprang up!!
Sounds interesting, doesn't it!?
Pag 23
1: A preliminary battle!?
He wants' to challenge us!?
2: Now!?
Here!?
3: You came here... on purpose... for this?
4: Yeah
5: I came here for this only?
7: Uh!! Sohoku's captain's.....
Pag 24
1: Onoda-san's concentration sprang up too!!
Got it!!
Pag 25
1: Onoda!!
2: Onoda-kun!!
3: Seriously!?
4: Waaa
5: We're starting a race against those two!? Teh!?
6: Oh, oh oh?
Pag 26
1: Really?
Those jerseys
2: It's Hakone Academy and Sohoku!!
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Can you expand on what you mean by Baron being "too cool" to really fit a horror monster? It's a very interesting concept and I'd love to hear your thoughts. Is it that they're too active/involved/tangible and it detracts from their scariness?
I feel like I should preface this with a wall of disclaimers lmao 1/I am a hardcore, down-to-the-marrow, avid, deeply sincere horror enthusiast, esp. horror creatures. this usually means my mileage is vastly different from the average populace's, and my scaredy bone has been disintegrated by longterm exposure. most things in a piece of horror media won't scare me! so I practically never use that on its own as the scale to talk abt horror experiences, but when something does scare me it's always a special occasion to be treasured. 2/canon d20 is never really meant to be horror horror, and for good reasons: it doesn't fit the company's output, it takes a kind of carelessness in production estimation that is always a huge risk, it's often vulnerable in a way that kinda goes against how TTRPGs usually facilitates vulnerability, and for most people it's just! stressful! d20, even with the "horror-themed" seasons, generally just plays with horror tropes and stays focused in its goal of being a comedy improv tabletop theater show. 3/fantasy high's chosen system is DnD, which as I've mentioned before is before all a combat-based game system, which means the magic circle of play is drawn based on stats that facilitate and prioritize combat. want or not this affects every interaction you have in the game, and given fantasy high's concept from the ground up (everyone's going to school of DnD stuff to get better at DnD) it's doubly relevant. 4/This Is Fine I have no quarrel with this. my meters are internal, I do not ask this show to be anything it doesn't advertise itself to be, and what it is is fucking great! I like it! when I expand on this ask's question it will be like a physicist going insane in a lab. that's the mindset we're going in with.
disclaimers done. my stance on horror as a genre is that it's a utility genre rather than a content genre or a demographic genre; it is the discard of narratives. it's the trash pile. horror, above being scary, is about being ugly and messy, it's the cracks on the ground any story inevitably steps over to stay a genre that isn't horror. the genre's been around long enough to develop a codex and a general language that medias and makers and enthusiasts of the genre can use to talk about and build onto, but if you go into individual pieces there's really no unifying Horror Story. one person's beautiful life can be another's horror story, it's just how it is.
this makes The Monster a deeply intriguing piece of the genre. thing is a monster is in a decent percentage of any story - it's just when the antagonist force steps into something past a certain line traced out in the story's world. monstrousness is in pretty much every western fantasy story, it's in any story with a hero and something to vanquish or win; more than anything it's a proxy of that thing up there. the line in a narrative's world. the monster is the guard of the unknown lands, where heroic, civilized people don't tread.
what does this mean in the context of horror? the genre is about that perceived lawlessness, that "unknown land" so to say. we're in the monster's home. that's the literary context that we often walk into a horror piece with; the monster knows more than you about where you are. it may not understand you, but it holds more information than you, and with that it moves swifter than you, has more covered than you, and is more assured in its existence in this context than you. it's a struggle to catch up to it, it's nigh impossible to get one over it, and you're never sure it'll 100% work, because you just don't have the information necessary to.
with that framing you can kinda see where I'm coming from here: horror's often about the breaking of rules. I always think a monster's most effective when it breaks well-established rules of both existence and visual storytelling. think Possum (2018) or Undertale's Omega Flowey or the Xenomorph Queen - unique change in medium, unique change in graphic, unique change in design language, etc. in that sense I actually really like how canon baron plays out: they don't really function like anything else in the fantasy high universe, the bad kids have not managed to kill them when they've felled literal gods, their domain in fhjy literally introduces new mechanics to encompass their existence! from an experience design standpoint they slap mad shit. BUT! I can't help finding their character, like as a character riz (and the other bad kids, eventually) interact with, to be very... coherent? in design. this is kinda hard for me to articulate in words, it's more often a sense you get once you've looked at enough of these scrumptious fuckers, their general design and the way they show up is just kinda too clean, so to say. always kinda newly made? fresh unboxed. it, once again, makes sense for their lore - they are looking for more about themself from riz - and their function - they're an antagonist in a game experience, they're meant to be interacted with in a way that produces results and meshes with the existing magic circle - but that shininess takes away from the implied history they should have dominion over and the person they're haunting doesn't.
from another angle there is kinda something there about how put-together canon baron is as a concept; the domain they call home is riz's deep-seeded fears, extremely vulnerable things he's drawn borders around to quarantine and refused to walk into. things that from his perspective would irreversibly shatter certain pleasant fictions his world is built on top of. canon baron, While Extremely Cool, I feel is kinda too neat to connect with and signify the apocalyticized mess that'd result from this paradigm shift. the part where they're in riz's briefcase and looking through every mirror is Very Cool And Fucked Up! but ultimately the show draws a line around them as well, by making game-physical, tangible spaces they're in (the mirrors and the haunted mordred manor) and put riz and the bad kids there only when they need to confront stuff. riz is meaningfully narratively away from baron's unknown land for most of fantasy high.
with that and all of my disclaimers in mind my conclusion here is if canon baron wants to be a Horror Monster they'd have to cross way more lines. be a Lot more invasive. hence (holds up my class swap baron like a long cat)
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i’m in this strange phase where i’m trying to explore my spirituality and to understand what divinity means to me and it’s just. hard. complex.
i was raised in an atheist family but now i know, deep down, that i am not an atheist. but atheism is still inscribed in my brain, the shame of worshipping, the shame of honoring the divine, as if it should be hidden, as if i was being irrational.
i have been practicing, or trying to practice, hellenic polytheism for a little while now. i keep going through phases of faith then of doubt. something isn’t quite right yet.
i love religions— all of them interest me. i just decided i wanted to read the Old Testament, so i’m reading the Genesis now. and i’ve been doing research on Judaism, out of curiosity. it fascinates me— but especially the rules. the constant connection to the divine, even in mundanity. the concept of every action having a purpose, of doing things a specific way and knowing why, of finding God everywhere and honoring God all the time. i see a lot of people being scared of religious obligations, of organized religion, and i understand how it can be dangerous at times, but i yearn for the order, for the meaning.
i want organized worship and i want to find God every day. i want to do everything with the intention of connecting to the divine. and yet i don’t know what the divine is, what God(s) is (are), and i still believe monotheism isn’t for me, something about it bothers me— but maybe it’s just christianity ? i don’t know anything anymore. i know polytheism interests me too and i know my autistic special interest is ancient greek religion and ancient cultures, but it’s hard to draw the line between what interests me due to my autism/simply because i find it amazing to learn about, and what interests me because it feels right and aligns with the way i perceive things.
so i keep doubting, i doubt and wonder and question and find myself irrational whenever i think of a God, or of multiple gods/Theoi. i know i believe in something. but there is this atheistic guilt, atheistic shame ?
i’m so lost.
and everyone i know is either an atheist or a usually-not-very-observant catholic. so exactly what i already know not to be for me.
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